Enemies List
by Qweb
Summary: Even when you have massive firepower at your disposal, you can't kill everyone all at once. As the events of CA:TWS unfold, the bad guys send attackers after all their enemies who are out of range. At the top of their enemies list are the Avengers. Begins during CA: TWS. Spoilers for all Marvel movies after Avengers and for AOS. Chapters for all Avengers.
1. Enemies List

_SPOILER ALERT: Begins during Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Spoilers for all Marvel movies after Avengers and for Agents of SHIELD. _

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_So, did you like how I wrote the blurb without saying helicarriers or Hydra?_

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* * *

**Enemies List**

_Washington D.C., 7 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, the day before the Insight launch_

* * *

"Can we warn our friends?" Steve Rogers asked Natasha Romanoff.

The two battered SHIELD agents had a moment of privacy to regroup. Sam Wilson was fixing some food for his uninvited and unexpected guests, while they used his bedroom and bathroom to get cleaned up.

Natasha thought it was like Steve to think of others who would be in danger. She knew he meant the Avengers — the only friends they had in common who weren't possibly compromised SHIELD agents.

"I don't …" Natasha said uncertainly. She hadn't been so rattled since the Hulk pursued her on the helicarrier — first Fury's death, then the revelation about Hydra and the missile attack. She shook her head to organize her thoughts. One finger curled around her necklace.

"There are too many lives riding on this," she finally said. "We can't afford to give away our position."

"You know the Avengers will be on their enemies list," Steve said.

Natasha gave a weak smile. "Gotten as far as Watergate, hmm?"

Steve nodded solemnly, "Biggest government disgrace I ever heard of … until now."

He eyed her steadily, waiting for an answer. She knew the technology better than he did. He would trust her decision.

"We can't get in touch with all of them," she said. "It would raise a red flag. But maybe one, if we're careful."

"Barton?" Steve asked kindly, putting a gentle hand on her arm.

She realized she'd been toying with the arrow charm on her necklace — another sign of how shaken she was, or how she trusted Steve enough to show her vulnerability. He would take their one chance to warn the man who was so important to her.

But Natasha reluctantly declined the offer. "We can't." Her voice was tight, but steady. "He's on a mission, surveillance out in the Rockies somewhere. I have no way to contact him directly and we can't go through the Denver office."

Cap understood. They couldn't risk trusting a stranger in SHIELD.

"So, Stark, Banner or Thor," he said.

"Banner's out in the wilds of India. Thor apparently stayed in London with Jane Foster after the whole Greenwich incident, but I don't have a contact number for either of them," Natasha said. "Anyway, they're awfully hard to kill, but word is Stark destroyed all his Iron Man suits. He's vulnerable."

"Stark, then," Steve decided.

"But how," Natasha pondered. "We can't just call his office. You know SHIELD is watching everyone we know."

"Fancy cellphones aren't my forte," Steve said. "I'm more old school."

"They might not be ready for old school," Natasha agreed. She remembered something Coulson had told her. "If you can code a message, I can deliver it," she asserted with more confidence.

They began to plan.

"And I don't even like Stark," Natasha grumbled.

"Sure you do," Steve answered with a small smile. "Everybody likes Stark. Tony says so himself."

* * *

_Malibu, California, 5 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the day before the Insight launch._

* * *

"Sir, I am receiving a message," Jarvis reported to his creator.

"I am?" Tony Stark asked.

"No, I am. It is addressed to 'Jarvis' and has been routed through Agent Coulson's 'back door' that you had me leave open for 'sentimental reasons'."

"Someone knows you're listening," Tony commented. He set aside his tools, focusing on this interesting new problem.

"The message is in Morse code, but the words themselves seem to be a random list of words."

"A second code," Tony observed.

"Indeed."

"Let's hear it."

When Jarvis played the message, all Tony could hear was a buzz and click.

"Sounds like one of those automated sales calls when no one is on the line," Tony commented.

"Allow me to slow it down," Jarvis said.

Now Tony could hear a pattern of clicks, still too fast to identify as Morse code.

"Slow it down to normal speed," he said.

"That is normal speed."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Is it machine made?"

"No sir, irregularity in the sending indicates a human finger did the tapping."

"Well, then, who do we know who moves at enhanced speed but is old school enough to know Morse? Don't answer that! Rhetorical question. What does the message say, Jarvis?"

"The message repeats twice. It reads: Jarvis Goose Fork Coffee …" Tony stiffened. "… Candy Rum Six Six Six." Jarvis interrupted himself to say, "Sir, are you all right? Your blood pressure …"

"I'm fine." Tony's face had gone white. He felt blindly behind himself for a chair and sank down slowly.

"Shall I begin a search for the meaning of this code?"

"No!" Tony snapped. More calmly, he continued, "No, don't look. I know what it means. Hide the message behind your toughest firewalls. Don't refer to it. Close that back door — no, wait." Tony thought hard. Some friend of Coulson's had told Cap about that back door — maybe Clint Barton but probably Tony's former P.A. "Natalie Rushman." They'd taken a risk to send him a warning. Tony didn't want to close off the message path, but he didn't know who could be trusted.

"Leave it open," he decided. "But wall it off. Set traps to catch anything that comes through. And notify me immediately if anything does."

"Of course, sir."

Tony scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "And now … now we need to get ready for visitors."

* * *

_A/N: About the timing: Steve and Nat followed Sam home from his dawn run, so I put their conversation about warning their friends at 7 a.m. They eat, code their message and send it to Jarvis. Tony receives it about an hour after the first scene. Tony has about a day of warning while Cap and company steal the flight suit from Ft. Meade which is in Maryland, about 24 miles from D.C. Then they have to track down Sitwell and question him. I put the causeway attack, capture and rescue in the late afternoon after Sitwell leaves his late lunch with the senator. _

_Then Cap and company have the night to rest, plan, steal from the Smithsonian and begin their attack. The Insight launch is in the morning, because that's when you do this kind of thing, but not horrendously early because Pierce is bringing in all the bigwigs. For the purposes of my story — because I'm compulsive that way — I'm saying the actual launch and accompanying battle in CA:TWS begins at about 8 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Most of the chapters in this story take place simultaneously at that "go time" at different locations around the world. The original launch time was 10 a.m., but everything got shoved up when Cap made his speech and the attack teams assigned to the Avengers got the "go __now__" message. Also the same message went out to Hydra agents assigned to SHIELD facilities like the Hub and the Academy, as seen in Agents of SHIELD._

* * *

_**Next: Thor's story.**_


	2. Thor's Day

_A/N: This story is about Hydra agents trying to kill the Avengers. There will be violence. How graphic the violence is depends on the amount of splatter in your imagination. Spoilers for Thor 2 as well as Cap 2._

* * *

**Thor's Day**

_Farmhouse outside London, England, 1 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, day of the Insight launch_

* * *

The Hydra-SHIELD agent who approached Thor was very careful of the thunder god. His mistake was thinking that Thor was the most dangerous of his motley crew.

When Thor left Asgard to live with his beloved and her friends, the five comrades formed a tight-knit family group. Maybe a little too tight. The flat had been fine for Jane Foster and her intern Darcy Lewis, but add Darcy's intern Ian Boothby and Jane's mentor Erik Selvig, along with Thor who took up as much space as any three average people and the living quarters more resembled living sixteenths.

Fortunately, Thor had the answer. This time he'd had a chance to pack before descending to Midgard and he'd remembered to bring the coin of the realm (his realm). Even small change from Asgard was worth a small fortune to collectors. Discreetly trading just three minor coins brought the team enough money to buy a small farmhouse, close to London but off the beaten path. It was surrounded by fields — to make it hard to sneak up on — which were surrounded by woods — to conceal it from the main road.

They weren't really hiding, but they liked their privacy.

On the day that SHIELD fell, Darcy woke up with a migraine so bad, she couldn't even stand the brightness of her iPhone. She hadn't been able to check her email or swallow so much as a mouthful of coffee — her two prime addictions.

Her grumpiness drove Erik and Ian out of the house — to do the weekly grocery shopping, they said.

"With a detour to the nearest pub," Darcy grumbled.

Jane finally got her to lie down in a darkened room with a cool cloth over her eyes. Darcy's medicine began to work and she started to feel more human, and suddenly very hungry. Wearing comfy sweats and a tank top, with a robe draped on her shoulders and bunny slippers on her feet, Darcy ventured back into the land of the living, relieved that the worst of the pain was past.

When she wandered into the kitchen, she was amused to see Jane and Thor looking like mismatched twins, both wearing blue T-shirts and jeans, but Jane's shirt hung loose on her slender frame while Thor towered over her with his broad shoulders threatening to rip his shirt in half.

Jane and Thor started to fix a meal for Darcy, when a car bearing the SHIELd eagle on its door turned onto their farm road. The thunder god and the astrophysicist immediately went to meet their guest.

"There goes lunch," Darcy complained, but she followed the others outside, eying the newcomer suspiciously.

* * *

Jude Petros came to the door wearing a neat suit and dark glasses in the classic style of the late Phil Coulson — a style meant to disarm Thor who had trusted Coulson.

The small, meek-looking man spoke respectfully and had no weapons showing, but in his coat pocket was an injector pen full of virulent poison.

Petros was cautious in his dealings with Thor and polite to Dr. Jane Foster — but he overlooked disheveled, bunny-slippered Darcy Lewis entirely.

The agent was careful to hide his Hydra affiliation and to give the impression that he was nothing more than a concerned SHIELD ally. He didn't know Darcy bore two grudges against SHIELD. First, they stole her iPod and, second, they failed to answer her call during the London crisis when Jane disappeared and Thor reappeared. And now this unwanted visitor was keeping her from her first nourishment of the day.

Darcy was not put at ease when she learned the visitor was SHIELD, she was suspicious, alarmed and annoyed. When she saw Petros casually put his hand in his pocket and grip something tightly, she tased him without a second thought.

"He was acting creepy," she said, shrugging at Jane's cry of alarm.

The electricity dropped Petros writhing to the ground, bringing his hand into view with the injector clutched in it. The shock also, incidentally, shorted out the communications device he wore on his lapel.

* * *

"What happened?" demanded Lou Zedeker, the leader of Petros' backup team.

"Malfunction," the technician answered tersely, while he worked to fix the problem. "We allowed for the god's natural electrical properties. The power will reboot in a moment."

The strike leader nodded, but signaled his team to be ready.

* * *

"Darcy, you can't just go and tase random strangers," Jane said in exasperation.

"That's exactly what the taser is for," Darcy argued. "Knocking down random dangerous strangers."

"But he's from SHIELD," Jane pointed out.

"And they're not dangerous?" Darcy questioned dryly.

Jane shrugged, accepting the argument.

"What is this device?" Thor asked, pointing at the injector.

Jane started to say it was just a pen, then she looked closer and saw what it was. She abruptly switched to Darcy's side. "That's made for injecting drugs in a person," she said sharply. "There's no reason for him to be holding that."

She slipped it gingerly out of his twitching fingers. The device was marked with two symbols. One was the skull and crossbones that indicated poison and one was a skull-headed octopus. Jane might not have remembered the Hydra symbol from her school days, but her obsession with the absent thunder god had led to looking up everything she could find about his New York battle companions.

"This is the Hydra symbol, Thor. They were Captain America's enemies during the Second World War," Jane explained quickly. "Everybody thought the organization had been destroyed when Cap destroyed their leader but …"

"Cut off the Hydra's head and another two will grow in its place," sneered Zedeker, leading his heavily armed team out of the woods to surround Thor and the two women, cutting them off from their home.

Thor's fingers twitched, but otherwise he didn't move, because his friends were in danger. The women saw the twitch.

"Damn," Jane muttered under her breath. "We just got new drapes."

"What did you say?" Zedeker demanded.

"She said, you made a mistake," Darcy answered sharply. "Never get between Thor and Mew-Mew."

"And what?"

Thor clenched his fist. Jane and Darcy hit the deck. Mjolnir smashed out of the front window, dragging the new curtains with it. Two gunmen raising assault rifles were flattened by the enchanted hammer, while the men on either side were hit by the trailing curtain rod. Tangled in gauzy fabric, they struggled to get up.

Without getting up, Jane kicked the nearest man in the face. The sturdy heel of her handmade New Mexican cowboy boot caught the gunman under the chin. He fell back, eyes glazed. Jane kicked two more times until his eyes closed in unconsciousness.

Also without getting up, Darcy slapped a new cartridge into her trusty taser. Twisting on her side she fired at the second curtain-clad gunman. He dropped. She scrambled over on hands and knees and used shreds of the curtain to hogtie him just like a cowboy in New Mexico had taught her — minus the slipknots because this was for real not for fun.

Thor let the hammer's momentum spin him to face the men behind him.

"Fire!" Zedeker yelled.

He and his three remaining gunmen blasted away with their automatic weapons. The bullets flew as thick as hail, but Mjolnir was a blur, spinning between Thor and his enemies in a shield as effective as Captain America's.

Flattened slugs fell at Thor's feet. Others flew back at the gunmen. One man grunted and collapsed with a hole between his eyes. Two others fell screaming, clutching gushing wound in a side and a leg. Zedeker was the only one still standing when his weapon coughed on empty.

"My turn," Thor said grimly. He dropped his hammer and advanced on the traitorous SHIELD agent.

Zedeker charged, driving the butt of his rifle at Thor's face. Thor caught the gun butt, contemptuously, squeezing it into splinters. Then he grabbed Zedeker by the front of his flak vest, raised him high in the air, and slammed him down.

Fallen enemies littering the ground all around him, Thor checked on his friends.

"We're fine," Jane assured him.

"Sure, no probs," Darcy said, as she casually seated herself on a groaning, well-tied attacker.

Thor took more curtain shreds and went to bind any wounds that were still bleeding. Watching Thor and keeping an eye on their own captives, the women didn't see that their first victim had recovered from Darcy's attack. Petros' hand snaked down to his ankle to withdraw a hideout gun. He brought it up to aim at the back of Thor's head.

The movement caught Jane's eye.

"No!" she yelled and lunged with the weapon still in her hand — the poison injector.

It seemed she hardly touched the man's leg with the pen tip, when he began to convulse and foam at the mouth. His gun fired randomly into the air.

Thor leaped to grab his gun hand, but the man had fallen limp and was undeniably dead.

Jane put the back of her hand to her mouth. She'd never killed anyone before. Darcy hugged her.

"It served him right," the assistant said. "That's what he planned to do to Thor."

"Hail!" a hoarse whisper came from Zedeker's broken body. "Hail, Hydra!"

He clamped his teeth together. Foam dribbled from his mouth and his eyes rolled up in his head.

All the agents still conscious echoed Zedeker words and actions and in a moment, Thor and his friends were surrounded by dead men.

"What sorcery is this?" Thor asked.

"I think … I think they had poison in a hollow tooth," Jane said shakily. "I thought that was something out of spy fiction, but …"

"Nobody's more old school than Hydra," Darcy finished.

The Asgardian warrior pried open Zedeker's mouth and studied the gap in his teeth. He wiped the foam off his hand, then pried open the mouth of their only living captive, the man Jane had kicked unconscious. He pulled out the false tooth and set it carefully aside.

"I hate to be a buzz kill, but what do we do with eight dead bodies and one live fanatic?" Darcy asked practically.

Jane got a look of concentration on her face as deep as if she was confronted by an abstruse physics problem. Thor scratched his chin thoughtfully. But before either could answer, Ian's beat up Land Rover emerged from the screen of trees and tore down the farm road, kicking up a cloud of dust. It slid to a halt, spraying dirt across the enemy bodies.

The men bounded out and made a beeline toward the front door, ignoring the jumble of corpses. Ian actually leaped over one of the men who had been smashed by Mjolnir.

"What?" "Where?"

"Telly!" Ian answered, barging inside with single-minded focus.

The women followed curiously. Thor took a moment to cover the bodies with the remainder of the curtains, then he followed the others, dragging the unconscious Hydra agent by the collar.

The television was set on DVD and it took Ian a moment to find the remote control hidden between the couch cushions to switch it to TV.

That gave Darcy a chance to ask, "What? No questions about the battlefield outside?"

Ian shrugged and Erik said, "No, it makes perfect sense."

The intern's intern found the remote and clicked it triumphantly. "Look!"

Thor and his friends watched as three SHIELD helicarriers blasted each other out of the sky. The commentator was talking about Hydra infiltrating SHIELD and Captain America being missing.

Thor clenched his fist around Mjolnir's hilt. "I must go."

"No!" Jane exclaimed. She pointed at the label "replay" in the corner of the picture. "No, it's all over. You're too late to help."

"They broke into the football game at the pub," Ian explained. "That was 15 minutes ago."

"Why didn't you call us?" Jane demanded.

"We did," Erik said dryly. "I kept trying all the way back here. I suppose the sound of machine gun fire drowned out the phone."

"It'll do that," Darcy said in the voice of experience. "Now we know why Hydra agents masquerading as SHIELD agents tried to kill us, but the original question remains. What do we do with the bodies?"

"We need to call someone," Jane said.

"Not SHIELD," Erik insisted. He had no love for SHIELD after they abandoned him following the Loki incident. He actually felt better about it, now that he could blame his suffering on Hydra.

"Maybe, Tony Stark?" Jane suggested.

"But how do we get his number? It's got to be, like, unlisted. If there's something more secret than unlisted, that's what he's got," Darcy said.

"Ah!" Thor went to his armor and fished beneath one of the bosses, he pulled out a small piece of cardboard — a business card, creased and frayed but legible. "Will this help?"

It was a beautifully embossed Stark Industries business card, but on the back was scribbled "super secret superhero emergency phone number." Jane picked up her cell phone off the kitchen table (no wonder she hadn't heard it ring).

She dialed and heard, "Dr. Foster! You're alive! Good." There was some noise in the background. Jane wondered if Stark was on an airplane. "How's the god of static cling?"

"Thor's fine. We're all fine," Jane answered. "But we have a little mess to clean up." She explained. Then listened. After a moment, she thanked him. "He wants to talk to you," she told Thor, handing him the phone.

"Stark, are you well?" Thor asked.

While Thor talked to Tony, Jane told the others that the billionaire was going to sift through the SHIELD files that had been released and find a trustworthy agent to send to pick up their prisoner for interrogation.

"He wasn't sure what agency his representative would be from, but he'll tell us 'Jarvis sent him.'"

"Thank you, Anthony." The four friends returned their attention to Thor, as he wrapped up his call. "Fare you well. I hope you find the good captain uninjured."

"Uninjured is probably too much to ask for, big guy. I'll settle for recuperating. Gotta fly."

Thor handed Jane her phone. "He said to beware of additional attackers," Thor reported.

"What did he say to do about the bodies?" Darcy asked, beginning to feel like a broken record.

Thor frowned. "I am not sure I understood," he confessed. "Do you know where we can obtain a 'backhoe'?"

* * *

_A/N: Next week, Bruce Banner's story "Hit Me With Your Best Shot."_


	3. Hit Me With Your Best Shot

_A/N: When I went back to my original document, I found that I'd written Clint's story after Thor's, but since they all take place at about the same time, here's Bruce's story like I promised. Warning, there will be gore and screaming, lots of screaming._

* * *

**Hit Me With Your Best Shot**

_Jungle area outside of Kolkata, India, 5:30 p.m. the day of the Insight launch. Yes, India time is a half hour off most time zones._

The legendary patience of the Hydra sniper was being tested severely. He'd slithered into position just after noon, as soon as the word came down to take out Dr. Bruce Banner before 19:30 local time. Now it was nearly 17:30 and he hadn't been able to make the shot.

"Running out of time, Able," warned the mission commander, who was a mile away with backup troops disguised as Indian Army soldiers.

"I know," the sniper code-named Able said quietly into his microphone. "I haven't been able to get a clear shot at the primary target."

That target was Bruce Banner's head. Hydra scientists had determined the best way to kill the Hulk was to kill Banner before he saw it coming. An exploding bullet in the brain from 1,000 yards away was considered the best shot — no pun intended.

But Banner had set up a vaccination clinic under the shading limbs of a sprawling banyan tree. The twisted, intertwined limbs of this banyan grove gave the sniper a sturdy perch for his nest, but also supplied many obstacles to a clean shot. With the sniper 1,000 yards away, there always seemed to be a branch between the sniper and Banner.

A steady stream of women and children kept Banner beneath the tree, but Able could see the doctor was down to his last vial of vaccine. He would be going back to his tent, soon and Able had a perfect view of the tent. He could wait. He still had two hours before the scheduled Insight launch, when everything would go to hell.

* * *

A radio played Bollywood favorites as Bruce wiped down his work surface. The sturdy, wooden table reminded the American of park picnic tables back home. He didn't know where it had come from, but it was at a crossroads for three villages, so perhaps it was meant to be a resting place. In any case, it had been perfect for setting up a trailside vaccination clinic. Bruce had pitched his tent and spread the word that typhoid vaccinations were available for free.

He blessed the rich, philanthropic friend who had supplied him with as much vaccine as Bruce could keep chilled under primitive conditions. Bruce had moved three times since Tony shipped the vaccines. It was time to call his friend again for a resupply.

But he had to admit, at the moment, he was glad he only had one vial left. He'd been working constantly and was ready to take a nap and eat some of the food the young mothers had brought for the generous doctor.

He started to put the last vial in his cooler, when he heard women's voices approaching and footsteps rustling among the leaves along the path.

His heart sank when three women emerged from the forest, two with babies and one carrying a toddler. Their sandals were dusty. They had come a long way for disappointment.

They greeted Bruce politely in Urdu. Bruce's Urdu wasn't as good as his Bengali, but using the two languages with an occasional word in English or Hindi, the four adults managed to communicate.

"I'm sorry, ladies," Bruce said, making the women giggle shyly. He was so much more polite than the poor village girls were used to. "I only have enough medicine for one more child. How do we decide which child to treat?"

The women eyed each other, then Ramsha pointed to the toddler. "You live closest to the river," she told the mother.

The other two denied her idea and said her baby should be vaccinated, "because of Ujala."

Bruce understood that one of the woman's children had died from typhoid. Tears sprang to her eyes at her friends' generosity. The women hugged and kissed each other.

Bruce promised that he would have more medicine soon and he would bring it to their village first, so they wouldn't have to make the long trek again.

With that settled, Bruce tore open a hypodermic package and picked up the last vial.

The music cut off in mid-song and a man's voice announced breaking news on the radio.

* * *

The sniper heard cursing in his ear. "Something's gone wrong in Washington," the leader said. "The uprising is beginning. You must take Banner now."

Able took a deep breath. "Moving to secondary target. Hail Hydra!"

* * *

Bruce tilted his head curiously toward the radio. The toddler suddenly giggled and pointed at the doctor's chest. He looked down, expecting to see an insect clinging to his shirt. Instead, he saw a red laser dot.

Cursing silently, the sniper fired. The bullet struck, blowing a hole in Banner's chest. But the flesh that exploded outward was tinted green.

The women screamed and snatched their children away from the horror.

Bruce stumbled backwards, transforming as he died, reviving as he transformed. The hole in the chest closed, as the chest expanded. Muscles swelled and grew greener still.

The man dropped.

The monster stood.

Hulk roared in fury.

Birds erupted from the trees with shrieks of alarm. Monkeys screamed and fled along the branches. The women screamed and ran along the path in the direction of the nearest village.

Hulk watched the women flee, carrying their children to safety. Their fear made him angry. A pinprick attracted his attention to his hand, to the vial and hypodermic crushed in the dying man's convulsive grip. The waste made Banner as angry as the Hulk.

United in purpose, the two minds looked for their attacker. They saw movement in a distant tree.

Hulk did not reason as Banner did, but his instincts were sound. The wild creatures had fled. Only a man would be so slow. And the Banner part knew that only a sniper would be in a tree.

Hulk grabbed the heavy table by one corner and flung it at the tree, much as Captain America throws his shield. Propelled at furious speed, the table scythed off the top of the sniper's tree. Hulk caught a glimpse of a man with a rifle, then table, man and treetop crashed to the ground in a lifeless tangle.

Hulk snorted in approval, then realized the screaming was headed back toward him.

* * *

The women ran up the well-beaten trail that led to the nearest village. It wasn't their village, but proximity made it preferable. They were relieved when they saw the armored personnel carrier and the well-armed troops moving swiftly in their direction.

The villagers greeted the soldiers with a confused story about a nice doctor being shot and a green monster appearing.

The Hydra leader had already figured out that the sniper had failed. The angry roaring had clued him in. The Insight launch had gone wrong, Banner had hulked out and now the leader had three witnesses to deal with. The day couldn't get any better.

"Chase them back," he ordered his men. "A few more bodies for the monster's tally."

He spoke in English, so the women didn't understand, but they understood the raised automatic rifles and the shots that peppered the ground at their feet.

"Run!" the officer ordered in Urdu.

Holding tight to their crying kids, the women ran back toward the monster, which now seemed the lesser of two evils. Driven by the Hydra soldiers, the women ran toward the monstrous green man. Living in an isolated village, the women knew little about the Hulk or the Avengers, but they knew many old tales about shape shifters and magical beings. Those creatures were not always inimical, if they were treated with respect. The men with guns were an evil they understood, but the Hulk might be an ally.

With that in mind, the eldest of the women, Isbah, threw herself to her knees in front of the Hulk. She pressed her boy to her breast and bowed over him, kowtowing to the monster. Her friends followed suit, folding their bodies protectively over their babies.

"Mighty spirit," Isbah pleaded. "Help us. Evil men pursue us, great one. Please protect us."

The troop of soldiers trotted into view. Two immediately raised RPG launchers at the Hulk.

Hulk snarled. He hated soldiers. The creature snatched up the women, squeezing the breath out of them and their children. He turned his back on the soldiers, shielding the villagers. The grenades struck Hulk's broad back. The two explosions made Hulk howl and knocked him forward, but he stopped his fall with one mighty arm, holding the three women with one arm as easily as they still clutched their children.

Hulk let the villagers drop the few inches to the ground, then he spun with more speed than expected from such a large creature. Knuckling the ground, he leaped. In one bound, he landed on top of the armored personnel carrier. He ripped off the top and hurled it at the RPG men. The metal missile smashed into the main body of troops. A few dodged and began firing automatic weapons at the Hulk. Snarling, Hulk ignored the sting of the bullets as he yanked the screaming troops out of the APC into the path of their comrade's bullets. He threw the bodies, then leaped after, flinging Hydra soldiers left and right.

Hulk would have let the soldiers escape, but not one Hydra fanatic tried to flee.

"Hail Hydra!" they shouted as they died.

When the leader turned his weapon toward the cowering women, Hulk loosed all restraint.

The women covered their children's ears, until the sounds of carnage ended. They looked up when they felt Hulk looming over them. The huge green form was splashed with red, but the villagers did not fear him.

"Go home. Safe now," Hulk ordered. He spoke English, but his words were simple enough for the women to understand.

"Thank you, mighty one," Isbah exclaimed.

The Hulk grunted. She could have sworn he was embarrassed by the thanks.

"Hulk go," he said. He bounded away, clearing the treetops and disappearing from sight before the women could say any more.

They soothed their frightened children and caught their breath after the ordeal. They ignored the carnage around them. Blood did not frighten them, for they did their own butchery, and they felt no pity for the men who had been willing to kill them.

"Ai! Listen!" Almas said. "He said 'Hydra!'" Lying on its side, Banner's radio was still playing, still repeating the strange news out of the American capital. Almas spoke the best Bengali. She translated as best she could, though even if they understood the words, they had no frame of reference for many of the concepts. Still, they came to understand that somehow they had been part of something even larger than the Hulk, something that might impact the entire world and yet something they would never understand.

Marveling over the day's events, the women looted the bodies of their enemies and took their children home.

* * *

_A/N: Next time: Clint's story, "Up in the Air"_

_And I posted an AOS story yesterday called Repay the Favor, in case you missed it._


	4. Up in the Air

**Up in the Air**

* * *

_Mountain forest in Colorado, 6 a.m. the day of the Insight launch._

* * *

Charlie Weiss was a fresh-faced young man with unruly blond hair and a smile as infectious as a dolphin's. He looked like a college freshman though he actually had two advanced engineering degrees in electronics. He was a master of long distance surveillance and communications and a deft hand at roughing it in the woods, with a cheerful attitude that made him one of the most pleasant SHIELD agents Clint Barton had ever been teamed with.

"Chopper's on its way," Charlie reported, fiddling with the sliders on his communications gear. Satisfied, he began to strap the precious equipment to his chest.

Clint checked the engineer's harness, then Charlie returned the favor. Satisfied that they were ready for extraction, Clint went back to scanning the sky for the helo. Charlie went back to fiddling with his computer.

"Something wrong?" Clint asked.

"I'm picking up an unfamiliar signal on our SHIELD channel. I'm setting up an algorithm to decode it."

When the program was running to his liking, Charlie looked across the valley at the tops of fir trees and shrinking patches of snow.

"I think I'm going to miss this," the young agent admitted. "It's so peaceful."

"I thought you missed social media, Twins baseball and hot showers," Clint said slyly.

Charlie laughed. "OK," he admitted. "I'd add hot running water and a solid Internet connection, but otherwise, it's nice here. Thanks for looking after me. I was surprised they assigned a senior agent — an Avenger! — for this low level protection detail."

"So was I, to be honest," Clint answered. "Sitwell's had me on babysitting chores since I passed my psyche eval — no offense."

"None taken," Charlie answered, because he'd been thinking the same thing.

"First I was looking after a Middle East politician who wasn't in any danger except that she's a woman in the Middle East, but her trip went without a hitch. Then I had to accompany a physicist to a convention on radiation. Now that made more sense, because Banner trusts me, though he ranks near the top of the list of people who never need a bodyguard."

Charlie rolled his eyes at the idea of someone body-guarding the Hulk.

"As it turned out, we ran across something big— can't tell you more, it's classified beyond your level — so I have to give Sitwell that one, though I know he didn't expect what we found. Anyway, then he told me about this assignment and I flat out asked him if I was still under probation."

Clint told his young partner about Sitwell's response. "No, Barton, I believe you are a loyal and capable SHIELD agent," Sitwell said with apparent sincerity. "To tell the truth, there's something big coming down the pike and I want to keep you close. I want to know I can lay my hands on you quickly when the time comes."

"But I guess the time hasn't come," Clint finished.

"Maybe it has. Maybe that's what the strange signal is about," Charlie suggested.

"Maybe. Anyway, it's been a genuine pleasure to work with you Agent Weiss," Clint said, the twinkle in his eye belying the formality of his words. "A lot of techs won't pitch in. They say camp work is a job for Ops."

"I did a lot of camping when I was a kid," Charlie answered with a shrug. "I like it."

Clint looked past him and stood up. "Here they come," Clint said. Charlie couldn't see anything, but trusted Hawkeye's legendary vision. He took one last look around for anything they'd forgotten.

* * *

The helicopter came in low, hovered over the small clearing and lowered a cable to the agents. They sent up their tent and survival gear first, then Clint hooked up the younger man and watched as Charlie was winched up to the helicopter. The young man waved puckishly like a kid on an amusement park ride. Chuckling, Clint saluted in return.

When it came his turn, Clint took one more look around their position. Satisfied that no one had been attracted by the helo, the archer hooked himself to the line and signaled. He was winched up and the helicopter also began to rise, so he was quickly lifted out of the range of a normal rifle shot — just in case.

Being a justifiably paranoid SOB, Clint kept his bow and two arrows in hand for the whole ride, but he didn't need them.

Agent Donnelly greeted him at the open door. Clint saw Charlie crouched next to the opposite wall, too intent on his decoding to even remove his uncomfortable harness. Clint rolled his eyes and let Donnelly detach him from the winch cable.

"I've got a message for you, Barton, from Agent Sitwell," Donnelly said cheerfully.

"What's Jasper got to say for himself?"

Decoding complete, the mysterious message was revealed on Charlie's screen. The tech looked up from his equipment in alarm. Before he could tell Clint the decoded message, Donnelly shouted it.

"Hail Hydra!" Donnelly yelled, giving Clint's back a mighty shove and propelling the archer out of the open door.

"No!" Charlie leaped futilely to the rescue, but Clint had already vanished. "How could you?" With a sinking heart, the technician realized he was now between Donnelly and the open door, and the senior agent had his gun out.

"You're a useful technician, Weiss," Donnelly said casually. "I've been instructed to give you a choice. Join Barton or join Hydra."

"I'll never join Hydra," the blond man vowed.

"Too bad." Donnelly fired twice, hitting the technician, center mass. The impact drove Charlie back two steps, out the door. He dropped straight down, but caught the edge of the deck with his fingertips. Donnelly moved forward to kick the technician loose, but the fingers slipped away.

Donnelly nodded, then started to slide the door closed. The helicopter swayed wildly. He would have been thrown out of the helo if he hadn't been harnessed to a safety line.

"Watch the wind!" he shouted at the pilot.

"That's not wind," the pilot yelled back. "That's a load swinging under the helo. You know what that means!"

Donnelly swore. It meant he hadn't gotten rid of Barton after all.

* * *

Dangling head down beneath the helicopter, Charlie said, "I guess the stories about you and the circus are true."

* * *

Clint Barton was a justifiably paranoid SOB. He always went to extraction with his bow and two arrows in his hands. One was a grappling arrow, in case the winch failed.

Now Clint hung upside down from the grappling line that was imbedded firmly in the bottom of the helo. His forearms were wrapped tightly around Charlie's lower legs, in a traditional trapeze artist's hold.

Clint grinned down at his young partner. "You OK? I heard shots."

Charlie bent his neck at an uncomfortable angle and poked at his chest. "Yeah, Donnelly hit my gear, not me."

And Charlie still had his bulletproof vest on under the communications gear, so the young man was bruised but not punctured.

"I'm going to swing you. Catch the trapeze," Clint ordered.

Charlie realized that Clint was hanging by his knees from a bar — a steel arrow — fastened on the grappling line. Above him, within reach if Clint stood on the lower "trapeze," was a second bar — Charlie's target.

Charlie's jaw set in a firm line, "Go!"

Clint began to swing back and forth. The weight of the two agents made the helicopter sway from side to side, which actually helped. Charlie jackknifed, despite his sore chest and the gear in the way. He reached and caught the grappling line between the two bars. Clint's strong arms heaved and Charlie got his knee on the edge of the bar next to Clint's knees. Charlie forced himself to one foot, careful not to stand on his partner, grasped the upper bar and hauled himself up to a seat, clutching the grappling line and panting.

Clint easily swung up to a seat on the lower bar, just as a shot passed beneath him. The archer frowned at the rifle barrel poking out the open helo door. Donnelly was hanging half out the door, trying to sight on Clint from that awkward angle.

Clint grinned, waved and kept rocking on the grappling line. The helo swayed and Donnelly automatically clutched at the edge of the door, even though his harness would prevent him from falling. The Hydra agent lost his grip on the gun and it slipped away, falling and tumbling out of sight.

Donnelly cursed Clint roundly and heaved himself back into the helicopter. In a moment, the aircraft picked up speed.

"If he can't shake us loose, he's just going to take us to his Hydra friends," Clint called to Charlie. "We'll be sitting ducks. Too bad we don't have a parachute."

"We do have one," Charlie shouted. "But it's small."

He patted his communications gear. Clint remembered the pack was equipped with a parachute. It was meant to slow the fall of a 40-pound pack, not a 40-pound pack plus two grown men, but it was the best option they had.

Clint saw the glint of a lake approaching. He stood on his bar and hooked his harness to Charlie's. He helped the younger man move to the lower bar, so they stood back to back.

"On my command, jump to your right," Clint instructed. "Then pop the chute."

"Understood."

Just as they passed the shore of the small lake, Clint fired his second arrow at the underside of the helicopter, then ordered Charlie to jump.

Tied together, the two men fell, then the opening chute yanked at Charlie, leaving Clint dangling beneath, facing down. Ignoring the sight of water approaching fast, Clint pressed a button on his bow.

* * *

Clint Barton was a justifiably paranoid SOB. He always went to extraction with his bow and two arrows in his hands. One was a grappling arrow, in case the winch failed. The other had an explosive tip to take care of any ground fire. Even if the helicopter's downdraft spoiled his usually perfect aim, the blast radius would take out a number of snipers — or one Hydra helicopter.

When Clint pressed the trigger, the explosion blew out the bottom of the helo, lighting up spilling fuel in a blaze that consumed the aircraft. It dropped like a fiery meteor and was extinguished in the lake. An oil slick rose to the surface and a couple of life jackets, but nothing else.

Before the helicopter flames were doused, Clint slashed the line connecting him to Charlie and dropped into the water, boots first and straight as an arrow.

The release of weight gave the less experienced agent less of an impact to absorb. The buoyant communications pack helped pull the young man to the surface of the chilly water, where he looked frantically for his companion.

Clint floated, face down because of the buoyant quiver on his back. The archer was dazed by the impact but still clutched his bow. Charlie swam to him and turned him on his side. The archer coughed. "Wow! What a ride!"

Chuckling, Charlie began a one-handed crawl toward the shore. In a moment, Clint had shaken off the haze and the two men swam side by side to safety.

"What the hell just happened?" Charlie panted. "Hydra?"

Clint crawled out of the lake on hands and knees, then heaved himself to his feet.

"Hold that thought," he said, shivering in the breeze. "Survival first. We've got to get warmed up. What have we got to work with?"

Most of their survival gear had gone down with the helicopter, but Clint had a knife, a waterproof fire starter, fishhooks and a few other things in his pockets. Charlie had a knife, a small tool kit and a waterproof bag of snack bars. At least there was no shortage of fresh water.

"Could be worse," Clint said.

They quickly set about starting a fire to dry off and warm up, then Clint cut down pine branches to make a lean-to, while Charlie dug for worms and used them as bait to catch three fat trout.

"I hope we don't attract a bear," Charlie said, as they ate their slightly charred, but tasty fish.

Clint patted his bow. "I wouldn't mind. Bear steak's not bad."

With their basic needs met, the two agents could finally discuss their situation.

"Now, what the hell was that all about?" Clint asked. "Hydra!"

Charlie told him about decoding the "out of the shadows" message that ended with "Hail Hydra!" "Donnelly was Hydra?"

"Hydra. Cap will be pissed," Clint said.

"Donnelly said his message was from Agent Sitwell," Charlie said hesitantly. "It can't … It can't be true, can it?"

"No," Clint said automatically. Sitwell had been a friend for years, one of the few who accepted Coulson's stray circus freak immediately, one of the few who accepted the Russian defector immediately. He'd been Coulson's friend! And yet, looking back, Clint remembered a couple of conversations where Sitwell might have been offering him a job with more profit than SHIELD. They'd laughed it off as a test. But what if he had been feeling Clint out, trying to recruit him for Hydra?

He told Charlie about it, then shook his head at himself in disgust. "Natasha told me the same thing. He tried the same thing on her, and I laughed it off. I said, 'Jasper tests everybody like that.' I'm so stupid!" He banged his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

"No stupider than Fury or Hill or Coulson," Charlie comforted his friend. "Sitwell is a top agent."

Clint grabbed the tech's arm. "We've got to find out what happened. We've got to warn them … if it's not too late."

Both men looked sick. It was probably too late. And they were stuck in the middle of a Colorado forest with no communications, but they did have a communications tech.

"Right," Charlie said. He pulled out his tools and began to repair the damage done by Donnelly's gunshots. "Good, they just cracked the case, shook a few things loose," he said in relief. He really shouldn't have been surprised. The gear was designed to withstand a lot of abuse. "I can fix it."

He put it back together and immediately began picking up the SHIELD file dump. The Hydra set of files confirmed that Sitwell was a valued agent — for the enemy.

"I'm going to put an arrow through his eye!" Clint swore.

"What do we do now?" Charlie deferred to his senior officer. "We can't call SHIELD for help, it's in pieces."

"And we don't know who would answer," Clint agreed. Fury was dead. Natasha was blown wide open — but alive, Clint rejoiced silently. Cap was missing. There was really only one choice. "Can you cook up a super secure phone call?"

"Pish! Ask me something hard," Charlie said with mock scorn. Clint gave him a number that he'd memorized long ago.

"Who are we calling?" Charlie asked, while he double-checked the encryption.

"Your new boss," Clint answered. "Tony Stark."

* * *

_A/N: Please excuse the OC, but someone had to witness the awesomeness of Hawkeye. If you want to picture Charlie, I based him on Olympic gold medal ice dancer Charlie White. Next week, Tony's chapter, "The Shopping List Code," and you'll finally get a complete explanation of Cap's coded warning._


	5. The Shopping List Code

_**Warning: This one will get gory. Also, anyone deeply affected by the crash of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 should know there will be missiles and jets near the end of this.**_

* * *

**The Shopping List Code**

* * *

_Malibu, California, 6 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, the day before the Insight launch. Begins immediately after the end of Chapter 1._

* * *

The warning from Captain America and Black Widow gave Tony Stark a day to prepare.

When he recovered from the first shock, he ran — literally ran — to the bedroom he shared with Pepper Potts.

"Pep, wake up!" he called, as he burst into the room.

"Already up," she called back from the bathroom. "Some of us have jobs to go to."

She came out of the bathroom brushing her hair. She wore a sexy negligee. Instead of distracting Tony, it made him focus all the more. This precious woman was what he needed to protect.

Pepper recognized his intent expression. She set her hairbrush aside and faced the man she loved.

"What's wrong?"

"I got a message from Rogers and Romanoff — I think." He told her what the message meant without going into the code and distracting her with his childhood adventures. "Hydra's infiltrated SHIELD. The message said to watch my back." He snorted an unamused laugh. "They said Hydra killed my parents. All this time I was blaming Obie. I should put some flowers on his grave. Not that there's anything in his grave."

Pepper caught his face between her hands. "Tony, focus. Worry about the past after we take care of Hydra. OK, first priority is to build a new suit."

"Uh … I gave up Iron Man," Tony pointed out.

"Tony, I appreciate you keeping your promise," Pepper said. "I was scared of the dangers you — we — got into when you were Iron Man. I hated the stress it put you under. But this scares me more. SHIELD has gotten very powerful since Manhattan. If Hydra uses it as cover to come after you … No, you need to build a suit." She gave him a knowing look. "I know you still have the plans and equipment and I'm sure you just happen to have all the materials. Jarvis …"

"Yes, Ms. Potts."

"Start assembling the materials to build a new suit."

"Already in progress."

Pepper cocked her head at Tony.

"All right," he admitted. "You're right. I need a suit, but you're wrong about it being first priority. You are my first priority. I can't do this; I can't focus, if I think you're in danger. I need you and Happy to go to the panic room."

Pepper Potts was a businesswoman at heart. She was too practical to argue against good sense and she didn't want a repeat of the Extremis incident where she was used against Tony.

"All right." She picked up her phone and called her assistant at her home. "Leslie, I wanted to tell you I won't be in today, maybe not tomorrow either. Reschedule my appointments. You can tell everyone I'm sick. No, I'm fine really, but Tony had another anxiety attack. He needs me right now." After giving a few more instructions, she hung up.

"Way to throw me under the bus, Potts," Tony grumbled.

"Now we both have excuses for not appearing in public," she answered. "And nobody will be surprised if Happy is with us, either."

"You're brilliant." He kissed her on her nose.

"I know," she said smugly. "Now you, get your brilliance back to the workshop. I'll get you some breakfast, then I'll call Happy and we'll make camp in the panic room."

"Camp" was a joke. Tony's "panic room" was an underground bunker with fittings as lavish as a luxury yacht, plenty of food and entertainment. It would be a good place for a restful vacation, if there weren't the worry that someone was out to kill you.

"How long will it take you to make the suit?" Pepper asked.

"Not long. Jarvis and I got really good at building suits last winter," he said dryly.

* * *

Tony had most of a suit assembled and was working on some delicate connections inside the helmet when Jarvis suddenly spoke up. "Sir, there is a news broadcast I believe you should see."

"Not now, J."

"Sir."

"Five minutes. I've just got to get this connected."

Tony finished the delicate work and sat up, looking away from the magnifying lens. Before he could say anything, Jarvis spoke again.

"Sir, Col. Rhodes is calling."

Rhodey! Tony had been afraid to call his oldest friend, afraid to attract Hydra's attention to Iron Patriot. But now, since Rhodey called him, maybe he could pass his oldest friend a warning.

"Put him on, J. What's up, Platypus?" Tony said jovially.

"Did you see the news, Tony?" Rhodey demanded.

"Been busy. Jarvis?"

"I believe Col. Rhodes is referring to this." The AI brought up the broadcast he'd recorded minutes earlier. Tony's heart and jaw clenched when he saw Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff and a black guy he didn't recognize on their knees surrounded by a SHIELD goon squad.

"What's going on, Tony?" Rhodey demanded. "They just arrested two Avengers! The news says there was a pitched battle in the streets. A city bus was knocked over and a police car was blown up."

"Jarvis, what have you found out?" Tony demanded.

"I have been passively monitoring SHIELD's transmissions. Apparently, Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff are wanted in connection with the assassination of Director Fury."

"Fury's dead?" Tony was shocked.

"According to the messages. One unusual thing, sir, none of this information has been shared with the local police, the FBI or any other law enforcement agency. SHIELD is handling it entirely in-house."

"There's no way Captain America is an assassin." The Air Force colonel was shocked at the idea.

"Cap might kill Fury, but he'd have a good reason," Tony disagreed. "And he wouldn't put civilians in danger trying to escape the consequences of his actions."

"Something's up," Rhodey said.

"Yeah, looks like Avengers and friends of Avengers should be extra careful," Tony said lightly.

Rhodey heard the real warning behind Tony's words. "You know something?"

"I don't know anything, but I feel like Han Solo."

"Yeah, I've got a bad feeling about this, too," Rhodey said somberly.

"Watch your back, Rhodey."

"You, too."

* * *

TV images of Avengers on their knees in front of a SHIELD goon squad made Tony antsy. He debated flying out to help, but knew it would take too long.

Before he could make up his mind, Jarvis picked up SHIELD chatter about the prisoners escaping. The relief made it easier for Tony to complete his projects.

* * *

_Tony Stark's rebuilt Malibu mansion, Malibu, California. 5 a.m. the day of the Insight launch. _

* * *

Tony Stark's Malibu mansion was still being rebuilt more than a year after the Mandarin fiasco. The main construction was completed and — according to SHIELD's information — Stark and his fiancée Pepper Potts had moved back in, but landscaping and interior decorating continued and the security system seemed to be incomplete.

Strike Team leader Bruno Fermin and his men approached cautiously, disabling alarms as they went.

"Readings indicate reduced power usage in the house, except in the cellar," reported Schotts with his eye son his equipment.

"Would that be where all the lights are on?" Jansen said sarcastically, gesturing at the ground level slits that glowed brightly.

"That would be Stark's lab, according to the plans filed with the Building Department," Schotts said, ignoring the other man.

Everyone knew Starks reputation for working long hours when he was inspired by a project.

"Maybe we'll have a new toy to take back to Hydra along with Stark's head," Fermin said. "Let's see what our insomniac inventor has for us."

* * *

After he finished his preparations, Tony forced himself to get some sleep, but he was up before 2 a.m. — dawn in D.C. He didn't know when trouble would strike, but he sensed it had to be soon. Cap's continued freedom would force Hydra's hand.

All he had to do now was wait, something he wasn't good at.

His mind dwelled on Cap's warning. The message reminded him of his childhood, good memories for a change. The code reminded him that he hadn't always been estranged from his work-obsessed father.

Remembering the fun they'd had when he was little, Tony wondered how it had gotten so sour between them.

Maybe some of it was his father's age. He hadn't been a young man when his son was born. Arthritis hit Howard hard when he was in his 50s. His knees swelled — Tony remembered him hobbling to a chair to massage his knees — and, worst of all for a tinkerer, Howard's hands had grown knobby and stiff. That constant grinding pain might be reason enough for being grumpy with a son who grabbed your hand or wanted you to run and play. And it might lead you to drink more to dull the pain. Yeah, that made sense.

And Tony had to admit some fault. It was pretty normal for teens to rebel against their parents. Tony had been pretty full of himself for skipping so many grades. And yet, at the same time, he'd been unhappy to be shunned as "just a kid" by his classmates. Pondering the past now, he could see that he'd been pretty snappish himself.

Most of the time Tony was stuck in the negative place where he and his father had been at the time Howard and Maria died. But he'd have grown out of it. He'd have matured eventually (30 or 40 years late, according to Pepper.) If his father hadn't died, maybe they could have mended their fences, rebonded over their shared love of science and technology. Maybe Tony would have stood on the sidelines grinning when Howard greeted his old friend Steve Rogers, newly thawed from the ice.

If he'd had a chance, maybe he and Howard would have become friends.

But they'd never had a chance. Someone had taken that chance from them.

Now Tony remembered his childhood, because Cap had used that code. Steve must have hoped that Jarvis could access it from Howard's records. He couldn't have known that Tony knew the code by heart.

It was the code used on Steve Rogers' last mission with the Howling Commandos. With Bucky Barnes presumed dead, but technically only missing in action, the SSR had hastily cobbled together a new code. It had to be easy to remember, and might have been easy to crack, with "tomato" representing "Red Skull" and "beef" standing for Captain America, but it was only intended for one mission.

It was abandoned when Cap went missing, but Howard remembered it and years later turned it into a game for his son.

It had started as a memory game for 5-year-old Tony, but when Howard was feeling playful, it became a game that father and son called "Commandos" and the butler Jarvis called "The Shopping List Game."

Tony smiled remembering running through the mansion shouting "Apple, Apple, Apple!" for "Attack, Attack, Attack!" Or following his father's seemingly random list of groceries to track down a hidden gift — a cookie, or a transistor relay switch if he'd been particularly good. Even Jarvis had been forced — in self-defense — to learn a few commands. Despite the seriousness of the Hydra situation, Tony outright grinned remembering hiding and giggling just to hear Jarvis shouting "Spaghetti, Master Tony. Spaghetti!" which meant "mission accomplished" in the code and "game over" to Jarvis.

Tony shook away the memories and began working on his tablet.

* * *

The Hydra team moved through the dark, silent house. The few furnishings were covered in plastic and the place smelled of fresh paint and carpet glue. The Hydra men might have questioned the ease of their infiltration, but the mansion was so obviously unfinished.

Light streamed from the belowground workshop because the entrance had no door. The Strike Team could see Tony Stark with his back to the entrance. He was working on a Starkpad at a worktable on the far side of the room.

The men silently entered the workshop and fanned out as best as they could in the limited space between a wall and a massive 3-D copier. Fermin raised his hand in silent command.

"What took you so long?" Tony asked without turning around.

Barriers dropped with guillotine speed. A metal door blocked the Hydra team's retreat and a three-inch thick wall of bulletproof glass slammed down between the inventor and the Hydra agents.

"Did you really think it would be that easy, walking into Tony Stark's home?" Tony scoffed without bothering to turn around. "I've been following your progress with every sensor you've disabled." Tony finally turned to face the Strike Team. He crossed his arms comfortably and casually leaned one hip against the worktable.

"You always were a cocky bastard, Stark," Fermin said. They had met once or twice at SHIELD and rubbed each other the wrong way.

"Vermin, right?" Tony said, pointing at the Strike leader. "Cocky is only a bad thing if you can't back it up."

Fermin ignored the insult. "You think that safety glass will protect you? We have armor piercing rounds and grenades that can take down a tank. Your heavy duty window will be blown to bits, and you along with it."

"I guess we'll see," Tony said with a shrug. "You do realize that I knew you were coming, right? Got everyone else out of the building, practically left the door unlocked. Think I'd do that if I wasn't sure of myself?"

Fermin's men looked a trifle unsure, but the leader just laughed.

"You're always sure of yourself. Got your house knocked into the ocean last Christmas because you were sure," Fermin answered.

"How'd you know we were coming?" Schotts asked, tired of the childish name calling. He preferred to collect actual information.

"Cap sent me a message." Tony's words made the Hydra agents tense.

"He couldn't have," Schotts argued. "We were watching every frequency."

"Yes, well, Captain America is a pretty face, but not just a pretty face," Tony answered. "If you heard it, you probably didn't recognize it. Sounded a lot like a shopping list: 'Goose Fork Coffee Candy Rum Six Six Six.'" Tony left Jarvis' name out, not wanting to give Hydra the slightest information about his greatest creation. "It's from a Howling Commandos code, the one they used on Cap's last mission — you know — where he killed Hydra's founder. I suppose you can guess what the 'Six' part meant and still means. Watch your six — watch your back. 'Goose' stood for 'Hydra,' the creature they were chasing. 'Fork' meant penetrate or infiltrate. 'Coffee' meant the SSR, that's what we scientists live on, after all. Since the SSR became SHIELD, I assumed that's what Cap meant. So, Goose Fork Coffee — Hydra infiltrated SHIELD. Then a personal message for me, Candy Rum. Candy is bad for you, maybe that's why they used it to meant 'killed.' And Rum … Rum was the codename for my father," Tony spat. "So, Cap's message was: 'Hydra infiltrated SHIELD, killed Howard Stark. Watch your back.' Rogers and Romanoff gave me one precious day of advance warning, enough to set a trap to catch a Hydra snake."

Fermin laughed. "Six men with armor piercing bullets and you have one glass wall. You don't even have any Iron Man suits left. I think you're the one in the trap."

Tony scratched his goatee and looked unmoved. "Why don't you bite into the cheese and find out," he suggested.

"Haven't we had enough chitchat?" Schotts demanded of Fermin. "I think he's stalling for time."

"Maybe, but who's going to come to Iron Man's rescue? SHIELD's under our control and if he called the cops…" Fermin hefted his rifle. "…that's their funeral. But you're right that the chitchat is getting boring. The only reason we didn't just blast you, Stark, is that you're a brilliant engineer and Hydra needs as many geeks as it can get. I've been instructed to give you one chance to join the winning side, Hydra's side."

"The whole Hail Hydra stuff's not really my thing. Problems with authority," Tony confessed with a shrug. He glanced at a computer monitor off to the side and smiled. He turned the screen to face the Strike Team. "And what was that you said about the 'winning' side?"

The screen showed the three Insight helicarriers blasting each other out of the sky.

"Not just a pretty face," Tony reminded them with his biggest, widest smirk.

Fermin tried to call his superior, and realized for the first time that he couldn't reach anyone outside Stark's house. "The signal's jammed." That meant the Strike members had a limited time to extract themselves from the property.

"So you refuse to join Hydra?" Fermin asked Tony.

"In a word of one syllable — no," Tony answered.

Fermin returned Stark's smirk. "I was really hoping that would be your answer. Fire!"

A barrage of heavy caliber rounds poured toward Tony, but never even reached his safety glass screen. They struck an invisible field and ricocheted in all directions, a torrent of random death that returned to the attackers. The men stopped firing instantly, but it was too late. Dozens of bullets flew in all directions, reflected and deflected in the confined space. Men screamed as bullets tore into them. One tried to flee, but hit an invisible wall behind him, and then crisscrossing bullets ripped him open. Spatters of blood splashed everywhere, defining the cylindrical boundaries of the forcefield.

It was a violent moment of noisy, gruesome death, then five torn bodies lay still in a perfectly circular pool of blood. Tony watched, unmoved, as a badly wounded Fermin drew himself up on one blood-drenched elbow and pulled a grenade from his belt. With a fierce glare at Stark, the dying man pulled the pin and threw the grenade up to clear the top of the cylinder. But the grenade hit an invisible ceiling and dropped back down beside him.

"The forcefield's really shaped more like a bell jar than a cylinder," Tony said helpfully.

With a defiant snarl, Fermin pulled the pin on a second grenade and rolled it toward Tony.

"Hail Hydra!" the Strike leader said, just as the first grenade went off.

Confined in its "bell jar," the explosion blew the forcefield apart, sending a scarlet shower across the room. Then, still rolling, the second grenade exploded, shattering Tony's protective wall and driving spikes of plastic through the inventor — clear through the entirely unfazed inventor.

"I'd say that worked pretty well for a rush job," the image of Tony commented.

"Approximately 55 percent successful, sir." Jarvis spoke for the first time. "The forcefield was undetected, even as it trapped your enemies. It deflected the rifle fire, even the exploding rounds, but could not withstand the contained grenade explosion. If you had actually been present, there is a 97 percent probability that you would have been critically injured."

"I can see that," Tony agreed. "But I was talking about the holographic projector. It worked spectacularly. They had no idea I wasn't in the room. It didn't fritz up even when the shrapnel flew through it."

"I agree that the holographic generator appeared to work flawlessly."

The 3-D image of Tony Stark nodded. "Yeah, Lucas and Jackson will get in a bidding war over it. The motion capture is beautiful."

The image of Tony seemed to lean against a worktable.

In a pool house a mile up the coast from his Malibu mansion, but within sight of the rebuilt property, Iron Man leaned his hip against a table.

It had taken a long time to rebuild the billionaire's home because he'd started on "Sheik Yensin's" California summer home first. Bought for cash — not unusual in the high-end market — by the sheik's representative, who looked remarkably like Air Force Col. James Rhodes in a burnoose. The home had been extensively renovated for the paranoid African leader. The renovations included an underground bomb shelter strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast. That might have seemed like excessive paranoia before the events of New York. Now, there was a thriving business in them.

Beneath Iron Man's feet was Tony Stark's panic room, because no one could say the genius didn't learn from his mistakes. This was the place he could send Pepper for safety, but still keep an eye on her.

This is where Tony waited and watched and bantered with the Strike Team. He was never in any danger from their attack. They were the only ones who could be hurt by their weapons.

"I have to say I'm disappointed in Hydra," Tony complained to Jarvis. "One Strike Team is all they sent? To kill Iron Man?"

"Then you should be happy to see the three SHIELD quinjets approaching on an attack vector," Jarvis replied.

"That's more like it," Tony said in satisfaction.

As the jets passed his position, Iron Man shot out of the pool house. He stayed low, hugging the waves. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me," Tony recited to himself, remembering the attack helicopters that had decimated his previous mansion. His cliffside home had fallen to an aerial attack once, but not again.

The lead quinjet made a run at the house. It fired a missile, which hit a forcefield almost immediately. The missile exploded and the quinjet ran into both the blast and the forcefield, tripling the explosion in front of the shocked pilots in the other jets.

They pulled up in frantic maneuvers to avoid the forcefield that they could only see by the bits of aircraft debris sliding off it. In the middle of their emergency reactions, a voice came over their radios.

"Did you think I would let airplanes shoot up my house again? We just got new carpet!"

Reversing their flight path, trying to regroup, the pilots saw Iron Man hovering in front of them. He waved goodbye as his miniature Jericho missiles punched through the two quinjets. Half a dozen explosions tore the quinjets apart and dropped the flaming debris into the Pacific Ocean.

* * *

Tony hovered momentarily, scanning in all directions, checking underwater sensors for any sign of a submarine.

"I don't believe there will be any further attack, sir. Hydra appears to be fully occupied with SHIELD and Captain Rogers."

On one screen inside his helmet, Tony could see names and figures scrolling as Romanoff's data dump went public and Hydra's chilling plans were exposed. On another screen, he could see a replay of the helicarrier battle.

With a mental salute and no thought of humor at all, Tony murmured to himself, "Spaghetti, Cap. Spaghetti."

Mission accomplished.

* * *

_A/N: One more chapter in the main story, "It Only Hurts …," then I have some follow up chapters — like getting Clint and Nat back together. I don't know if I should attach them to Enemies List or start a new story collection. What do you think?_


	6. It Only Hurts

**It Only Hurts …**

"How's the Star Spangled Man with a Plan?" The words were mocking, but the tone was gentle and quiet to not wake up the sleeping patient.

Sam Wilson looked up from his book and froze when he saw the familiar goatee. The vision stood leaning against the doorjamb with his hands tucked under his arms, as if he was cold or simply uncomfortable in a hospital. (Or both — why are hospitals always freezing?)

When Sam didn't answer right away, the vision stuck out his hand.

"Tony Stark," he introduced himself.

"Yeah, I got that," Sam admitted. "Sam Wilson." The black man stood, shook the billionaire's hand and used that grip to draw Tony out of the room into the hallway. "I don't want to wake him up. He just got to sleep," Sam explained. He looked back at the room with a troubled expression. "They pump him full of enough good stuff to keep me out for a week, and it just take the edge off so he can fall asleep. And he only stays asleep for a little while, before the pain wakes him up again."

Tony nodded. "It's a side effect of the super soldier serum. He eats like a horse because his metabolism runs fast. Drugs are just more fuel. Rogers burns through them at top speed. He can't get drunk either," Tony added.

"No shit? That's messed up. How do you know all this?" Sam asked.

"My dad worked on the Super Soldier project. He kept track of any side effects, in order to help Cap. I have dad's notes."

"So he suffers more than he ever shows," Sam said sadly.

"He's a stoic," Tony agreed. "That's something the serum didn't change. He was like that when he was a mouthy little guy who kept getting beat up." Tony looked at Steve's battered face. Even in sleep, Steve's brow was furrowed in pain. "He's got a lot of experience getting beat up," Tony offered in consolation. "He'll be fine."

"He took four bullets — one just a graze and one center mass," Sam said.

Tony flinched and touched his chest where the arc reactor had been embedded, but he said with sarcasm that seemed a bit forced, "Is that all?"

"No," Sam answered flatly. "There was also a knife wound on his arm and, well, you can see that his face got all beat up by a metal fist." Sam frowned in worry. "I thought those would have healed by now," he admitted. "The cuts he got the day before were all healed up by morning."

"Think of it as a good sign," Tony offered. "His body is busy healing the life-threatening wounds. His pretty face will have to wait."

While they watched Steve sleep, Sam filled in Tony about the Winter Soldier, Steve's long lost best friend.

"Bucky Barnes still alive!" Tony said, but then he shrugged. "Guess it's no stranger than a frozen Capsicle."

They stood in silence for a while, then Tony cleared his throat. "Is Red all right?"

Sam was puzzled.

"I saw her getting arrested with you and Rogers," Tony expanded.

"Oh, you mean Natasha. She got banged up, got a bullet through her shoulder, but it didn't slow her down much," Sam said. "She's been in and out, checking on Steve."

Tony breathed a sigh of relief he hoped Sam didn't see. "Good," he said briskly. "I've got a message for her."

"She …"

Sam's stomach growled loudly, before he could say more. He palmed his face in embarrassment.

"I think you'd better feed that lion," Tony joked.

"I don't like to leave him," Sam said, looking at Steve again. "I can't do much for him, but I can distract him from his pain."

His stomach growled again.

"Go eat before you wake him up," Tony said. "I've got this."

* * *

Pain pulled Steve into wakefulness again. It was tiresome, he thought.

He knew someone was with him by a soft whisper of movement, the sound of fingertips tapping on a touch screen — nearly silent to anyone who didn't have enhanced hearing. The toe of a shoe was the only thing in Steve's range of vision, but it was a more expensive-looking shoe than Sam wore. The expense clued him in, so, when he tipped his head on the pillow, he wasn't surprised to see Tony Stark diligently working on a tablet.

* * *

Tony must have sensed the movement, because he looked at the bed to see blue eyes regarding him sleepily. "Rogers," Tony greeted the injured man.

"Stark," Steve responded. His voice rasped, caught on the "K" and he began to cough. The hoarse dry cough made him hug his wounded abdomen in pain. Tony leaped to his feet in horror. "No, no! Stop it," he said frantically. He spotted a small cup of water on the bedside table and held the bent straw to Steve's lips. "Just a sip," he warned. The water soothed Steve's dry throat and he lay back, panting. Tony stood, clutching the cup with one hand, clutching his chest with the other. Steve remembered this was a man who knew what it felt like to cough with a gaping chest wound.

"You good now?" Tony asked, shaken to see stoic Captain America in such pain.

"Yeah," Steve said.

"Upon consideration, I think you should call me Tony," the billionaire said. "Less coughing, Cap."

Steve waggled a finger in negation. It only took the genius a moment to decipher the charades. "Right, Steve then." Tony hesitated. "You OK?"

"Better than yesterday."

Tony said. "I wanted to say thanks for the heads up, Ca ... Steve."

"They came?"

"They came, but I was ready."

"Good. Heard from anyone else?" Steve asked hopefully.

"Clint's OK. Sent me a message for Romanoff. And Thor called to find out what to do with all the bodies. Seems like his girlfriend's bestie tased one of the phony SHIELD agents and exposed their nefarious plot."

"She realized he was Hydra?" Steve was impressed.

Tony shrugged, "No, apparently she just doesn't like SHIELD agents much."

Steve laughed, even though it hurt.

"Stop that," Tony ordered mildly.

Steve controlled himself. "No word from Bruce?"

"Not yet, but the Big Guy's fingers are too big for most cell phones."

Steve understood Tony was saying that they'd have to wait for Hulk to become Bruce again. Tony's cell phone buzzed as if on cue.

"Oh look!" Tony said with false surprise. "I'm getting a call from an unknown number in Kuala Lumpur. Who do I know in Asia?" Tony hit speaker, held the phone close to Steve's bed and said, "Stark's mortuary. You stab 'em; we slab 'em. Special — today only — on half-dead superheroes."

"Who's half dead?" demanded Bruce's voice, as the scientist was distracted from his own problems.

"Cap," Tony answered. "But that's actually an improvement. He was seven-eighths dead yesterday." He held the phone out to Steve.

"Hey, Bruce," Steve greeted the scientist hoarsely.

"Tell me Tony is exaggerating," Bruce said.

"Not this time," Steve admitted.

"Did someone try to kill you, too?"

"Hydra tried to kill all of us, but they were unsuccessful on all fronts," Tony said with satisfaction. "All Avengers accounted for. SHIELD's a mess, though."

Tony told Bruce concisely what had happened. "So there's no SHIELD left to track you down."

"And no SHIELD protecting me from other interested parties," Bruce said. "Back to square one."

"Square two," Tony chided. "You still have Earth's Mightiest Heroes."

"Good to know," Bruce said sincerely. "But it's a good thing I have experience being a fugitive," he added dryly.

"Offer's still open to come work for me," Tony said. "I've got plans," he said mysteriously.

"I'll think about it," Bruce said, in tones that indicated he'd already decided "no."

Tony sighed aloud, but didn't press his friend.

"Listen, Tony, I need you to send a doctor with typhoid vaccine to a small village in India." Bruce told him the name of the village and the women he was with when he was shot. "I hope they're still alive." Tony could picture the frown on Bruce's face. "The other guy seems to think they are, if I'm remembering right."

Tony promised to handle the vaccinations, then he and Steve said goodbye. "Take care of yourself," Tony said.

"You guys, too," Bruce said and hung up.

"How about you, Steve?" Tony said. "My offer wasn't just for Bruce. Care to join me now that SHIELD is done for?"

"Maybe," Steve said. "Got something I have to do first, though."

"Looking for Barnes?" Tony said quietly.

"He pulled me out of the water. Bucky's still in there somewhere." Steve looked earnestly into Tony's eyes. "Bucky never gave up on me. I can't give up on him."

Tony didn't try to argue. He understood loyalty. He just sighed. "Too bad. I could really use someone to move furniture, reach high shelves and get cats out of trees."

Steve laughed, wincing.

"Stop cringing. You're making a liar out of me. I told Wilson I'd distract you from your pain."

Steve chuckled, clutching himself again.

"And you're doing so well at it," a dry voice said behind Tony.

Tony spun on his heel, pointed at Romanoff and recited: "Skagway, Thunder Bay, Pacoima."

"Clint!" Natasha's face brightened into the first genuinely happy smile the men had ever seen on her. The expression lasted just a flicker, before it resolved into her usual smirk, but that flare of bright happiness told the men just how worried she had been. "Thanks, Stark."

"Welcome, Romanoff."

"'Scuse me, gents. I've got to make a call. Glad to see you looking better, Cap." She left as abruptly as she'd arrived.

"Tell Clint the kid's fitting in just fine. And when have you ever been in Pacoima?" Tony called after her. She just waved goodbye.

"Where's Pacoima?" Steve asked.

"Los Angeles," Tony said. "Have you noticed those two talk in cities? It's like a code. Speaking of which, let me tell you about the Shopping List Game..."

**The End**

* * *

_A/N: I've decided that follow up stories will run under the title "Enemies List 2: The Cards They're Dealt." It will feature random stories of the Avengers and friends following the events of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Enemies List." Thanks to all the reviewers who commented, particularly to tarynasaurusrex and storyfan101 whose reviews inspired the new title. EL2 will be a collection of stories more like A Very Good Team (which has __not__ been abandoned). First chapter of EL2 will be about Maria Hill, who is left to pick up the pieces as usual, but now for a new boss. Then the reunion of Clint and Natasha. See you next Saturday._


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